


nothing's gonna hurt you baby

by gorygoldfish



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, M/M, definitely not inspired by stardew valley what do you mean???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28708902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorygoldfish/pseuds/gorygoldfish
Summary: All Akaashi wants to do is hole up in the house he's inherited from his grandfather and finish his manuscript. He's not here to forge friendships; he's here to write without distractions.Enter Bokuto Koutarou.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	nothing's gonna hurt you baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s on day three of Akaashi living in the place when he’s first interrupted.

There’s a house out there, in the middle of the woods.

It’s not particularly large, or grand; its walls only stretch two stories high. Its shingles are loose, and its brown vinyl panels fashioned to look like wood are faded. The flower garden tucked neatly against the side of the house is overrun by dead leaves and overgrown weeds, and vines crawl up the posts attached to the second-story deck, foliage thick and green. The wooden stairs climbing up to the house have long since begun to rot with age.

Truthfully, it is not an impressive house. It needs a lot of work. The truly spectacular part is the front yard; Keiji has never seen anything like it.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” the real estate agent comments next to him in a chipper tone. Akaashi is inclined to agree.  _ Pretty  _ is actually a bit of an understatement, in his opinion. He had read, in the letter he’d gotten in the mail one month prior, that the house was secluded and had what had been referred to as a ‘scenic view,’ but up until this point, he hadn’t really understood what it meant; as he looks out across the road at the vast front yard before him, however, he reflects that calling the yard in front of him  _ scenic  _ is an insult to the land.

It’s beautiful; it’s breathtaking; it’s incredible. Spotted with trees and thick with grass greener than anything Akaashi has ever seen, the front yard is spotted with trees so large Keiji can only imagine the struggle he might have trying to fit his arms around their trunks. And beyond that, the yard abruptly slopes downwards, and the river cutting through it is probably one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen. Really, it’s not his fault; Akaashi was raised in the busy city streets of Tokyo. He’s not exactly a country boy, and not once in his life has he ever seen something so magnificent as the riverbed in front of him, shining with life and the reflection of the cool autumn sun above them.

This is all his.

It’s perfect.

He’s torn from his blatant awe as one of the movers accidentally shoulders him trying to heave one of his haphazardly packed boxes up the half-rotted stairs and into the house behind him. Hurriedly, Keiji straightens and brushes himself out, trying not to look too annoyed. “Yes, quite,” comes the delayed response. Beside him, the real estate agent beams, all polite, business-like smiles. “It’s a fine piece of land!” she chirps. “Such a shame, about the house. I imagine you’ll have a lot of renovating to do. You certainly have your work cut out for you!”

_ How typical, _ he wants to comment. Nevermind the fact that his grandfather has just passed away. Nevermind the fact that the house standing erect behind them is the only thing Akaashi has left connecting him to the reclusive man his mother speaks of so often. All the woman standing next to him cares about is that she was unable to get her grimy little hands on it when the old man died due to it being a part of the will. Typical. Keiji’s jaw twitches as he refrains from clenching it.

“It looks that way,” is what he says instead. “I believe there’s some paperwork I have yet to sign, isn’t there? I want to get unpacking, if you don't mind.” It’s a cheap ploy to get her off his newfound property and out of his sight, one she doesn’t seem to catch, if the way she perks up is anything to go off of. “Oh, yes,” she says, “Right this way, Akaashi-san.”

𓅓𓅓𓅓

The house, Keiji finds, is lonely. 

Though it’s true that it’s not an especially large building, there are a lot of empty rooms for him to be living there alone– and yet there he stands in the downstairs living room, surrounded by half-unpacked boxes and busy marveling at all the space he has. Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Two-car garage. It’s a huge step-up from his little Tokyo apartment with its leaky ceilings and noisy neighbors.

The downstairs bedroom, he decides, will be a good office. It has a door leading out onto the downstairs porch, one that he can prop open to let in plenty of light. The bedrooms upstairs are smaller, but the movers have placed his bed in the one with the sliding glass door opening up onto the second-story balcony, which is fine, because it’s the one he wanted anyways. It’s the last bedroom, the one directly across from his own, that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. For now, he supposes, it will serve as his junk room. Not that he has a lot of junk, anyways. He’s sure he’ll find a use for the room eventually, but until then, it’ll be good to keep boxes of things he’s not sure what he wants to do with yet.

Even with all the extra space, the inside of the house isn’t faring much better than the outside. Up until now, Keiji has never visited his grandfather’s home, and he doesn’t regret that, because apparently, the guy had a particular fondness for garish wallpaper. The upstairs dining room is decorated in some godawful pink rose wallpaper, and the downstairs bathroom is plastered with green peeling paper covered in  _ ducks _ of all things. To be frank, it’s atrocious. He can’t live like this. It’s just a matter of finding someone who actually knows how to fix the issue.

Much to his own surprise, he doesn’t even have to go looking.

It’s on day three of Akaashi living in the place when he’s first interrupted. So far, the majority of his time has been spent unpacking instead of writing, which is the entire reason he’s here in the first place; the moving crew left him after all the boxes were unloaded, and Keiji is dreadfully stranded in a social-aspect, stuck in a place like this where he doesn’t know anyone and no one knows him. He has no other choice but to unpack alone instead of shut himself in his office with his laptop to work on his manuscript like he wanted to. It’s not a terribly big deal; he might be unpacking at a snail’s pace, but Akaashi is fairly used to being alone. It’s easy to put on some music and become lost to the world as he unpacks box after box– and maybe that’s why the knocking on his glass door scares the everloving shit out of him.

Whirling, Keiji comes face-to-face with a stranger on his balcony. He knows it isn’t hard to get up there from the outside; there isn’t exactly a gate on the wooden steps leading up to the second-story porch. But it’s surprising anyways, mostly because he is literally the only person living on this street, and he hasn’t seen a single soul since the movers left. The man is grinning sheepishly at him on the other side of the sliding glass door, one hand caught in his nearly offensive looking black-and-white hair. He’s dressed in an old tank top that should  _ probably _ be illegal to wear, because holy shit, does he have muscles. The most striking part of him are his eyes, a shining, beautiful gold. Contacts, perhaps? Akaashi doesn’t have much time to speculate, because he quickly remembers that while this stranger is handsome, he is absolutely on Akaashi’s balcony, and he doesn’t look like he’s going away anytime soon.

Should he grab something to defend himself with? Is he being robbed? He would totally lose in a fight if he had to fight this guy. Tentatively, Keiji sidesteps towards the Bluetooth speaker centered on the buffet in the dining room, and he presses pause on the song he’d been listening to and then moves towards the door and the man on the other side. Tentatively, the door is unlocked, and he pushes it open just enough for the two to talk, propping his foot in the way so it can’t be forced open.

“Can I help you?” he asks, dark eyes squinting up at the man on his porch. He’s tall, a good few centimeters taller than Keiji. The man beams at him, his smile absolutely blinding, and rocks back on his heels. 

“Hi!” he says. “I’m really sorry to interrupt you, you look super busy!” Suddenly, Akaashi remembers that he’d definitely just been dancing like a lunatic in his dining room as he put together his table. He wills himself not to blush. “My name’s Bokuto,” the man charges on, unperturbed by Akaashi’s wary stare. “You’re Akaashi, right?” The slow nod he receives makes him grin even brighter. Akaashi is certain he’s going to go blind if he has to stare any longer. “It’s really nice to meet you! I’m the, um, I guess you could call it a groundskeeper? Your grandfather hired me to come by once a week to work on your yard?”

Keiji supposes that makes sense. His grandfather was a very old man, and Akaashi can only imagine it must have been hard for someone so elderly to mow a lawn as big as the one out front. “Anyways,” Bokuto continues, “I got halfway up here and then realized that you might not even want someone to do yard work for you, since you’re a lot younger than Kouichi-san and you can probably do it yourself. So I figured I might as well come up and ask if you wanted me to keep coming by instead of just going ahead and you getting mad because some weird guy you’ve never met is mowing your lawn.”

Smart. Akaashi probably wouldn’t have reacted well.

He looks Bokuto up and down once, and then his gunmetal blue eyes drifted past him, down into the yard. Indeed, parked next to the old barn is a beaten-down truck with a big lawnmower in the bed, along with what looks like an oversized bag of other tools. That seemed legit enough. Tongue pressed thoughtfully between his teeth, he slides the door open a little bit more. 

“That’s fine. Thank you, Bokuto-san. I don’t really have the time to be doing something like that, so that would be appreciated. How much was he paying you?” With one final look at Bokuto, Keiji turns on his heel and shuffles back over to the buffet where his keys and wallet are parked beside the speaker. “Six-thousand yen a visit,” Bokuto replies readily, and he supposes that’s fair; the yard is quite big, after all.

He’s halfway through digging the money out of his wallet when a thought occurs to him. 

“...Bokuto-san,” he starts, “Do you just do yard work?” Oblivious, the man still stationed on his front porch rocks on his heels, sticking his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “Well, for Kouichi-san that was all I did. But I’m good at other stuff too! I kind of do a little bit of everything!”

A single glance is cast about the half-finished dining room and its horrendous rose-patterned wallpaper.

“I see,” he says, casually, as he finishes pulling the money out. He counts it for Bokuto to see, and then tucks it under the speaker to give to him once he finishes with the lawn. Keiji shuts his wallet and places it back on the buffet beside the speaker, eyeing Bokuto curiously. “...And how much would you charge to, say, put up some new wallpaper?” 

Bokuto’s smile stretches across his face so widely that Akaashi worries his face might split in half.


End file.
